


I Want To Be More Than The Mess You Left Behind

by Solena2



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: But Literally This Entire Thing Is Just Ghost Hating Him So I Feel Justified In Tagging, Gen, Ghost Is Basically Bug Jesus And They'll Die Mad About It, One Shot, Overt Religious Themes, Post-Canon, Post-Dream No More Ending (Hollow Knight), The Author Is Not Confident That The Knight (Hollow Knight) Knows How To Die, The Knight (Hollow Knight) Is A Ball Of Pure Rage And I Refuse To Believe Otherwise, The Knight (Hollow Knight) Is Not Hollow, The Pale King Is Only There In Spirit, They/Them Pronouns for The Hollow Knight (Hollow Knight), They/Them Pronouns for The Knight (Hollow Knight)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27236686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solena2/pseuds/Solena2
Summary: Ghost existing as they are is a sin against the Pale King, and they hate Him for it.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 73





	I Want To Be More Than The Mess You Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about how Ghost never gets a chance to chill with their family in the "good" ending and then this idea emerged from the void and slapped me in the face until I wrote it.

Ghost had blasphemy baked into their being. It was in their silent cries for help. It was in every place the void that built the truest part of them clashed against their pale shell.

Their very existence was a sin against the God who created them, their mind a crime to think with.

Their endless will, their unstoppable determination, could not coexist with the weapon they were created to be.

The light that illuminated the kingdom, He who granted minds freely to the most insignificant of bugs, the Wyrm that had chosen this kingdom as his Hallow Nest ever more-

The only light in Hallownest now was the orange cysts of infection.

The Pale King had left his people alone, and Ghost would blaspheme Him if they liked.

He’d hurt their sibling and forced them to attempt a task they never could have succeeded at, He’d left Hornet motherless, He’d left thousands on thousands of vessels to die in the Abyss, and if He hadn’t had the courtesy to die before Ghost had returned to Hallownest, they’d have done much worse to him than casually blaspheme against their failure of a Father in the comfort of their own mind.

The truth was that the Pale King’s plan would never have worked.

The truth was that none of the vessels had been hollow.

They’d been children. Nothing more, nothing less.

He’d thought them less, and He’d _left_ them.

Ghost used every failure of a thought that crossed their blasphemous mind to curse every second the Pale King had spent walking upon the earth, for each of those seconds were lesser from his presence.

Ghost used every emotion they weren’t created to have to hate the Pale King with every inch of their being and several more beside.

The White Lady had apologized to them. She had seen Her mistake, She had seen what She’d done wrong, and She’d spent years being _sorry_ for it. They didn’t, would _never_ , like Her, but She was _sorry_ , and they could make their peace with that.

The Pale King was dead. The Pale King had gone to His grave thinking the only one who paid a price for His actions was himself.

The Pale King had died with the belief that no cost was too great, and He’d never considered that it wasn’t Him paying that price at all. He’d sat happily on his throne, He’d hidden it in the Dream Realm, had run from His people, and the ones who’d paid His price over and over and _over_ again were His _children_.

Hornet spent her whole life in a dying kingdom, desperately trying to scrape something together out of what was left because she was a princess and that was her duty.

The Hollow Knight had spent an eternity locked within their own mind, in an endless battle against a God equal in power to the Pale King himself, if not greater. They’d spent eternity having their sense of self be slowly dissolved from the inside out, and had known the whole time that it was that very sense of self that made them vulnerable, made them a _failure_.

Ghost had been called back to a dead kingdom by the desperate plea of the sibling who’d watched them fall to the Abyss, who’d been taken by the Pale King and turned away from every piece of their family they’d unwillingly left to be sealed for time immemorial.

Ghost had been called back, and they’d answered, and they’d carefully swept up what was left of the Eternal Kingdom.

Ghost had come back, and they’d given up nearly every part of themself to stop the Radiance, to stop the enemy that their Father had created Himself through his careless callousness, and they’d left their siblings to deal with cleanup on their own, _left their siblings alone_ , their siblings who they’d only ever wanted a chance to get to know, to really be a _family_ with-

Ghost had given _everything_ to exorcise the Pale King’s demons, and as they haunted Hallownest, as they continued to refuse Death just as they always had, they used every remaining bit of their being to loathe the failure of a parent who had landed them in this situation in the first place.

Ghost had blasphemy baked into their being, and though they loved to hate their God, they would have preferred to exist for a purpose greater than cleaning up after their Creator.

**Author's Note:**

> I have Feelings about these bugs


End file.
